How to Choose the Material for Your Promotional Sports Bottle

by David Platt31st August 2018.

Arguably one of the most effective promotional items out there has to be the branded sports bottle. With it being used in almost every sport, it can used in so many different types of campaigns and with these being taken to work, the gym and everywhere else, the brand exposure is huge. Here's how to choose the perfect material for your promotional bottle.

Promotional sports bottles are truly a slam dunk when it comes to promotional products. They are cost-effective, lightweight, are taken everywhere, and everyone wants to get their hands on one. Having decided on doing a promotional sports bottle for your next big marketing campaign or trade show, then you need to choose everything from colours scheme to size and shape. Luckil for you, we have a handy guide here to help you out. One big question though you need to ask yourself is the material that the bottle needs to be made from. You need to decide whether you are looking for materials that are as cheap as possible, or whether you are after a material that is recyclable.

Here's the breakdown of your choices.

Polythene - LDPE and HDPE

In the beginning there was polythene. This is the material used for the supermarket milk bottle, usually in its high density form (HDPE). The great thing about polythene is that it is cheap, the cheapest of all plastics. The disadvantage is that it comes on a rather milky, semi opaque form. Of course, this is not a problem when it comes to coloured bottles - and polythene can be coloured to almost any colour possible. We have a huge range of colours to choose from, but if you want something pantone matched, be prepared to make an order in the thousands.

The polythene bottle - including the polythene top - is fully rerecyclable and can be put into the household recycle bin with the milk bottle. Indeed PE is the easiest to recycle. Arguably using a re-useable water bottle which is re-fillable is considerably more environmentally friendly than buyer you water in a single use bottle anyway.

AS - Styrene Acrylonitrile

AS bottles are those crystal clear sports bottles that you have seen. The Coke bottle on the supermarket shelf is a crystallised polyester PET – which is great for creating a thin walled single use bottle which can retain the gas of the fizzy drink. But PET is more expensive than AS.

AS came under a degree of issues some years ago because of the additive BPA (Bisphenol A) which is used in its manufacture. This was banned in the USA because of the potential health problems of large exposure. Most promotional sports bottle today will be marked BPA free – but do make sure. Our Gobi bottle (pictured below) is made of the same thing, only this one has been dyed blue.

In principle AS can be recycled. In practice though, this is not so easy and so a good proportion of AS is likely to end up in land fill. Again the environmental argument is that a reusable water bottle if far better than the single use bottle.

Copolymers

These are chemical "mixtures" where the properties of the plastic has been modified to give the exact properties required. The most commonly used in promotional bottles is Tritan; this is a brand name of the chemical company Eastman.

This is BPA free and is stronger and lighter than standard AS but otherwise is similar in respects of its environmental properties.

PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled)

For the environmental impact the "greenest" of the products are those that have an element of PCR plastics included in the production. These are PE bottles that already contain recycled post-consumer plastic. Just because the bottle you offered says it is recyclable does mean that it actually will be recycled. Having a PCR bottle means that some of the PE has already been through a recycling process. You will find that the PCR bottles - look the same as the PE ones above - are more expensive and they are considerably harder to find - we offer some ourself, so do not be afraid to get in touch with our team.

Aluminium

Finally, of course, the promotional bottle does not need to be plastic at all. The alternative is an aluminium bottle. It is opaque, obviously, and in many ways a different product. Recycling of these is an issue because as well as the aluminium they often lined with a film of plastic making them a mixed material product. Again the argument for these is that a multi-use bottle is better than a single use supermarket bottle. They also tend to be much more hardwearing and so, in principle, could last a lifetime.